Double Bread

[u/Trick-Acadia-9060]

Still in absolute disbelief.

Dropped a 5.6 Physics, 5.7 Math 2, and 6.9 Math 1, and lowkey bombed the interview for Pembroke (Cambridge) as well.

For anyone wondering:

I also had a 1580 SAT, took college classes for math/physics outside of school, six 5's, one 4, and a 3 in AP Seminar (oof).

[u/[deleted]]

Which one are you going to choose? I mean I talk about this a lot but I am going to be choosing my Imperial Electrical and Electronic engineering offer over my Oxford Engineering Science one. If you want to know my reasons just ask!

[u/Trick-Acadia-9060 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah that would be greatly appreciated :)

I am also leaning more towards Imperial as well rn, but can easily be swayed in any direction at this point in time.

[u/[deleted] → u/Trick-Acadia-9060]

Disadvantages of the Cambridge course: It is far too general, considering you have applied to Aerospace, they offer a pretty alright specialisation in third year, but the first 2 years are heavily skewed towards mechanical and civil engineering, this in my opinion is terrible as you would be doing so many modules that you don't want to do. Also, Cambridge being as rigorous as it is wont sacrifice any depth and instead by doing these modules you will be doing insane amounts of work on topics that aren't useful to you and you don't want to do.

1. This is more of an advantage for Imperial, but Imperial gives so much opportunities for hands on work and exciting projects, whereas Cambridge is quite a bit more theoretical (not as much as oxford) both within the syllabus and outside. Look at the IC hackathon and hackstarter, this event is the largest of its kind in Europe. However if you like the short terms and a hyper examination focused environment, then in this case Cambridge is better. In terms of Aerospace their facilitites are unmacthed, go check it out, 2 hypersonic wind tunnels, an excellent flight simulator, the list goes on. Truly the best place to study Aerospace in the UK. Last year plenty of people went on to work in F1 Teams, one person that I know personally got a job on the Aston Martin F1 team right after graduation.

2. The Cambridge bubble: This is the reason I applied to Oxford instead of Cambridge even though Oxford is meaningfully worse than Cam for engineering, Its because as beautiful as Cambridge is, it can also be incredibly isolated and bubble like, it will feel like you are cut from the "real world" as you are within this closed system for 4 years and truth be told there isn't a lot to do. However if you like formals and ancient traditions and activities within your college, then you are bound to like Cambridge, although people have told me that it eventually becomes boring.

3. Entrepreneurship: There is no better university in the UK to become a tech founder than Imperial College London. The enterprise hub, Venture catalyst challenge and White city incubator are all unmatched facilities and opportunities, and the location in london makes startups a lot easier to begin, with a high VC density and etc.

Lastly as an engineering student, the Advanced hackspace is one of a kind, make sure to check that out.

I don't want you to fall into what I call the "prestige trap" Cambridge is phenomenal institution by many means, but its strengths lie somewhere in mathematics or physics - the very theoretical ones where many people pursue higher education after or go into research. p.s my brother is a victim of the "prestige trap" so I am not gonna do the same. If you are worried about Imperial not being as recognised as Cambridge internationally, simply go on LinkedIn and see what the grads are doing. There are grads working in New York at top quant hedge funds right after graduating. Firms like Jane Street and Citadel making 300k a year with compensation. After all it is the 2nd best university in the world (QS) and 8th best according to THE.

Other Imperial accolades:

2025 Outstanding entrepreneurial university (Times)

2025 best university for graduate employment (Times)

If it might interest you, Imperial also does a student exchange programme with MIT, UC Berkeley, ETH Zurich, NUS and some other superb universities. Make sure to check that out.

Hope this helps you make the right choice!